Prince William’s Asian mix-up

Prince William attended the opening of Japan House London today, the new cultural centre providing visitors an “experience of the best and latest from Japan”. I just want to establish our location, set the scene. And now that you’re there, watch this:

Prince William was in great form at the opening of @japanhouseldn - charming & engaging. But even a royal diplomat can make the odd bloop. Such as asking local schoolchildren at the event to highlight Japanese culture if they had eaten much Chinese food! He quickly recovered tho! pic.twitter.com/72swlvNbk0

This is ignorant and it’s unprofessional, because ignorance is never professional but also because it’s a lack of focus. He knows where he is, after all, doesn’t he? The ones who marry into the family, Princess Kate and Royal Meghan specifically, are always getting called out in the British press for, I dunno, whatever, laughing, fixing their hair, sharing their views on feminist votes, but this time, the crown prince, the one who’s supposed to be fully trained in manner and behaviour, makes the “odd bloop” that is 100% directly a result of a lack of focus and, let’s be honest, a lack of awareness and… that’s cool, right? Forgive him! It’s an honest mistake!

Honest is a good word for it. Because that’s what implicit bias is. It reveals the truth. That’s what happened here – we saw a true side of Prince William and probably a side he shares with many of us. We all have implicit bias. Most of us have had to confront our implicit bias the way Prince William just did. That’s how implicit bias can work, it slips out, because it’s part of how we’ve been shaped, and so much of our culture has been shaped around stereotypes and a lack of representation. Probably we’ve all found ourselves in similar positions. Some learn from it, some don’t. Will Prince William?